My story (Trigger warning)
DamagedButNotDestroyed
Registrant
I've been a member of this group for a while now, posted a few times and chatted with some great men in the chat but mostly lurk. Today I've decided to share at least some of my story. I have attended therapy, I have relapsed, I have found myself doing self destructive behaviour that cost me my career, my integrity and almost my wife and family. While I feel time does heal I see the continued struggle and find myself struggling to not destruct on a daily basis - even on days that start of great and you'd think would be a fine day.
My story starts when I got engaged at the age of 21. I met her in school and a friendship built over the years we were together. In the 2nd year of school together it was very clear that I had feelings for her, the reality is I wasn't a very popular guy with the ladies growing up, only had a few girlfriends ever and most ended with them cheating and moving on, not uncommon for teens. She was nice to me, seemed to want to spend time with me, I liked it. As we got closer she told me she'd never date anybody she went to school with, she wanted to keep those parts of her life separate. Made sense to me and I was ok with that. When my best friend told me one day that he went out with her on the weekend and slept with her, the same guy she told was nice but was not at all attractive, it should have been a warning sign about the lieing and deceitful behavior. But I went on like nothing happened.
We started dating after school and in hindsight this is when her behaviour really started. Constant put downs, "putting me in my place", never being good enough, constantly critized. She'd be getting ready to go out on a Friday evening and I'd happily say "great where are we going?" to which she'd look at me and say something like "yeah cause I want to be seen out with you". Then she'd smile and say "just kidding". I could tell I wasn't wanted there but I went along, then as time went on I stopped as it was clear she didn't want me there. When she'd go out I'd no longer ask where we were going, and I started to have absolutely no thought that I was going too. I'd stay home while she went out with her friends. At our 6 month dating anniversary I was pressured by her and her best friend that she better be getting an engagement ring. The relationship was all I had ever known and I did feel pressure that if I didn't have this I may never have a relationship again and even though I know I felt something wasnt right I bought the ring and proposed. Shortly after becoming engaged I was sent out of town for work and would be travelling for the next 4 months with occasional weekends at home only.
On my first trip away I called her and her ex bf that I had met once was at our apartment . She gave me some story of how he was back in town and just needed a place to stay for a day. Told me I was acting stupid for sounding concerned and that she had to go. My first night away from my fiancée there was an ex lover at my apartment with her. I'd call every night after I was done work for the day and he was always there. I knew this wasn't right but again I just went along with it not wanting to create a fight with a person that is very difficult to have a fight with.
I'd get home and he'd be there. Just like before it would be Friday night, she'd get herself ready to go out and leave me there at the apartment. I'd to bed and she'd come home after the bars closed, probably 3am or so, with him. Drunk out of their minds. They'd come into the bedroom and lay on the bed and start having sex right beside me. I'd freeze, no idea what to do, and I'd lay there pretending to be asleep. The next morning he'd still be there, everybody acted like nothing happened and I wouldnt say a word.
As time went on they'd both get more aggressive. One night he reached over and slapped me, pulled my head over towards them and said "you're going to watch me fuck your wife". She laughed and tell him what to do, how hard she wanted and needed it. She'd start saying how much better he was than me, call me pathetic, too small to please her, things like this. I'd try to look away and he'd slap my face or pull me by the ear and make me watch.
The behaviour started to quickly escalate where he started to make me provide oral to him in front of her, she'd humiliate me and say things while he did whatever he wanted to do. Things continued to get worse where he started to rape me, a few times in front of her laughing the entire time about what a sissy bitch boy I was. He started to piss on me, he'd do anything to be in power. He was extremely well hung and they both loved humiliating me about the difference in our size. Then he started to assault me even when she wasnt there. He'd come over and pin me down and assault me in the bedroom, if I didn't just cooperate he'd choke me, many times until I passed out and I"d wake to him inside me laughing.
This male that came into my life completely dominated me and I found myself doing absolutely nothing about it. I froze. I'd just close my eyes, go off to some version of a "happy place" in mind and let him do what he wanted to do. When I did struggle he'd punch me, hurt me, choke me, tell me he could kill me if he wanted to, I just found myself cooperating to make it hurt less. There were times after he did things to me he'd go out into the living room and him and the wife would be on the couch naked together and they'd yell for me to get them food and drinks...and I did it. They'd laugh i'd come back and he'd have her giving him oral and they'd be laughing and making me watch. I'll never forget the time he had two hands around my throat choking me out and stared in my eyes and said "I want to look at your eyes while you die" and just choked me harder. As time went on I hoped he'd kill me just to end this.
If i locked the house when he did get in he'd make me pay for it. He started walking into the house when he felt like it, coming in the patio doors in the bedroom and using and humiliating me for his power and pleasure. I never knew when he'd show up and lived in a state of fear for years. I lost my friends, my connections to my family, I was completely isolated and just went to work and stayed home.
I was terrorized by the guy for years and then my wife got pregant and she told me she wanted to change and to be a good mom and suddenly he disappeared. I didnt know what happened, she never said, he just stopped showing up. I was terrified every day that he'd come back. Just after I had my first child he did come back one night, abused me hard including punching me in the testicles so hard I almost threw up and they swelled to the size of grapefruits and I pissed blood. He anally raped me and kept telling me that I'll never be a good enough man to please her, to be a father, to be anything. He left that night and I never saw him again but for years and sometimes to this day 20 years later, I still expect he's going to show up. I dont know where he is today, where he lives, is he alive, will he show up, will he come back for me?
I have struggled that I had a good childhood, a good family upbringing, and at 20ish years old I allowed myself to be terrorized by this woman and this man. Freezing, doing nothing, saying nothing, just allowing it to happen. I was old enough to protect myself, to walk away from that situation, to leave this woman and this marriage, but I didnt. I had a child, I told myself I had to stay, and at times I told myself "this is as good as my life is going to get". At times I almost felt that this behaviour of hers was just normal and I need to just be OK with it.
I stayed married to her for over 15 years before I finally left. There was a time during it I was going to leave and we had talked about it and suddenly she got pregnant with our second child and we both knew I was never going anywhere once that happened. By this point we had no relationship. We didn't talk, we didnt go out, we didn't have sex. I found myself going online to chat sites and spending hours finding people that would speak degrading and humiliating to me, just to somehow make me feel normal and ok.
It wasnt until I met my future wife that I have today that I realized and felt I actually deserved better, more, and finally made myself leave. The destructive behaviours of having to have myself degraded and humilated were gone, I didnt think about it, I didn't feel it.
Then as time went on I did a career change, life got difficult, we had a baby, and the ex-wife started to push on my buttons again about things like child support, living arrangements, etc. I guess the combination of the stress of life, the job I always wanted I was not enjoying at all and felt I made the wrong life decision to pursue it, and her constant pushing and mean hurtful comments, started to bring me back there. I went online and spoke to an individual that I knew I shouldn't have and had inappropriate conversations with her including getting her to send pictures. I stupidly had sent her a selfie of myself and then when she attempted to extort me and I stopped talking to her she reported me to my employer and they terminated me. My wife found out about what I did, felt betrayed as you'd expect, that I cheated, and for a long while it looked like this relationship, the only good one I've ever had, was going to be over.
We stayed together, got therapy, worked through some very tough times. However I hid my coping mechanism of going onto those chat sites and being treated like a piece of shit to feel better. She didn't know however a few times almost caught me which escalated everything as she instantly thought I was cheating on her. Again I tried therapy, tried to cope tried to deal. Again months later I went on and this time I stupidly used a picture of my wife's ex husband as my profile picture (he has the same name as my assaulter and therapist would suggest it was a way of seemingly trying to get back at my assaulter). The person I spoke to knew the ex, told him, and he called my wife telling me what happened. Again my relationship was almost over.
At that point I told my wife everything, what happened, what I do. She amazingly stayed and has helped me through it but I know I'm on very thin ice and can't do those self destructive things again. I don't sleep, I have terrible nightmares including where my wife and her ex and doing the things to me instead of my ex and her boyfriend. I can't stop thinking about my wife cheating on me, having sex with guys and humiliating me, treating me like absolute garbage. From comments made to me I cant help but believe my wife wants a more endowed man, a better man, a real man. Some days all I want to do is go on those sites and have someone degrade and humiliate me and I for some reason will feel better but my therapist showed me how that is self destructive and will spiral out of control again until I do something that ends my marriage, my family, and I'll have nothing.
I'm sorry this is so long, I never posted or spoke in any detail of any of this. And there's so much more, so much more detail that I just cant make myself type.
How can a 20yo allow this to happen to himself? And to live that way for so many years? Still to this day one email from my ex gets me on edge and makes me feel those things. I struggle daily but I'm proud that for 6 months, since my last slip up, I havent went onto any of those sites or done that behaviour again. I have terrible days, hard to cope and manage, but I've been able to fight through them. I just don't know if I can keep it up and some days when those feelings and thoughts start, and I fight them, and they come back stronger, and I fight them, and they come back stronger...I have to fight so hard to not give in and say to myself "ok 10 minutes on one of those sites and I'll feel better and continue on in my day". I know I can't do that.
Thanks for reading and listening
DamagedButNotDestroyed
My story starts when I got engaged at the age of 21. I met her in school and a friendship built over the years we were together. In the 2nd year of school together it was very clear that I had feelings for her, the reality is I wasn't a very popular guy with the ladies growing up, only had a few girlfriends ever and most ended with them cheating and moving on, not uncommon for teens. She was nice to me, seemed to want to spend time with me, I liked it. As we got closer she told me she'd never date anybody she went to school with, she wanted to keep those parts of her life separate. Made sense to me and I was ok with that. When my best friend told me one day that he went out with her on the weekend and slept with her, the same guy she told was nice but was not at all attractive, it should have been a warning sign about the lieing and deceitful behavior. But I went on like nothing happened.
We started dating after school and in hindsight this is when her behaviour really started. Constant put downs, "putting me in my place", never being good enough, constantly critized. She'd be getting ready to go out on a Friday evening and I'd happily say "great where are we going?" to which she'd look at me and say something like "yeah cause I want to be seen out with you". Then she'd smile and say "just kidding". I could tell I wasn't wanted there but I went along, then as time went on I stopped as it was clear she didn't want me there. When she'd go out I'd no longer ask where we were going, and I started to have absolutely no thought that I was going too. I'd stay home while she went out with her friends. At our 6 month dating anniversary I was pressured by her and her best friend that she better be getting an engagement ring. The relationship was all I had ever known and I did feel pressure that if I didn't have this I may never have a relationship again and even though I know I felt something wasnt right I bought the ring and proposed. Shortly after becoming engaged I was sent out of town for work and would be travelling for the next 4 months with occasional weekends at home only.
On my first trip away I called her and her ex bf that I had met once was at our apartment . She gave me some story of how he was back in town and just needed a place to stay for a day. Told me I was acting stupid for sounding concerned and that she had to go. My first night away from my fiancée there was an ex lover at my apartment with her. I'd call every night after I was done work for the day and he was always there. I knew this wasn't right but again I just went along with it not wanting to create a fight with a person that is very difficult to have a fight with.
I'd get home and he'd be there. Just like before it would be Friday night, she'd get herself ready to go out and leave me there at the apartment. I'd to bed and she'd come home after the bars closed, probably 3am or so, with him. Drunk out of their minds. They'd come into the bedroom and lay on the bed and start having sex right beside me. I'd freeze, no idea what to do, and I'd lay there pretending to be asleep. The next morning he'd still be there, everybody acted like nothing happened and I wouldnt say a word.
As time went on they'd both get more aggressive. One night he reached over and slapped me, pulled my head over towards them and said "you're going to watch me fuck your wife". She laughed and tell him what to do, how hard she wanted and needed it. She'd start saying how much better he was than me, call me pathetic, too small to please her, things like this. I'd try to look away and he'd slap my face or pull me by the ear and make me watch.
The behaviour started to quickly escalate where he started to make me provide oral to him in front of her, she'd humiliate me and say things while he did whatever he wanted to do. Things continued to get worse where he started to rape me, a few times in front of her laughing the entire time about what a sissy bitch boy I was. He started to piss on me, he'd do anything to be in power. He was extremely well hung and they both loved humiliating me about the difference in our size. Then he started to assault me even when she wasnt there. He'd come over and pin me down and assault me in the bedroom, if I didn't just cooperate he'd choke me, many times until I passed out and I"d wake to him inside me laughing.
This male that came into my life completely dominated me and I found myself doing absolutely nothing about it. I froze. I'd just close my eyes, go off to some version of a "happy place" in mind and let him do what he wanted to do. When I did struggle he'd punch me, hurt me, choke me, tell me he could kill me if he wanted to, I just found myself cooperating to make it hurt less. There were times after he did things to me he'd go out into the living room and him and the wife would be on the couch naked together and they'd yell for me to get them food and drinks...and I did it. They'd laugh i'd come back and he'd have her giving him oral and they'd be laughing and making me watch. I'll never forget the time he had two hands around my throat choking me out and stared in my eyes and said "I want to look at your eyes while you die" and just choked me harder. As time went on I hoped he'd kill me just to end this.
If i locked the house when he did get in he'd make me pay for it. He started walking into the house when he felt like it, coming in the patio doors in the bedroom and using and humiliating me for his power and pleasure. I never knew when he'd show up and lived in a state of fear for years. I lost my friends, my connections to my family, I was completely isolated and just went to work and stayed home.
I was terrorized by the guy for years and then my wife got pregant and she told me she wanted to change and to be a good mom and suddenly he disappeared. I didnt know what happened, she never said, he just stopped showing up. I was terrified every day that he'd come back. Just after I had my first child he did come back one night, abused me hard including punching me in the testicles so hard I almost threw up and they swelled to the size of grapefruits and I pissed blood. He anally raped me and kept telling me that I'll never be a good enough man to please her, to be a father, to be anything. He left that night and I never saw him again but for years and sometimes to this day 20 years later, I still expect he's going to show up. I dont know where he is today, where he lives, is he alive, will he show up, will he come back for me?
I have struggled that I had a good childhood, a good family upbringing, and at 20ish years old I allowed myself to be terrorized by this woman and this man. Freezing, doing nothing, saying nothing, just allowing it to happen. I was old enough to protect myself, to walk away from that situation, to leave this woman and this marriage, but I didnt. I had a child, I told myself I had to stay, and at times I told myself "this is as good as my life is going to get". At times I almost felt that this behaviour of hers was just normal and I need to just be OK with it.
I stayed married to her for over 15 years before I finally left. There was a time during it I was going to leave and we had talked about it and suddenly she got pregnant with our second child and we both knew I was never going anywhere once that happened. By this point we had no relationship. We didn't talk, we didnt go out, we didn't have sex. I found myself going online to chat sites and spending hours finding people that would speak degrading and humiliating to me, just to somehow make me feel normal and ok.
It wasnt until I met my future wife that I have today that I realized and felt I actually deserved better, more, and finally made myself leave. The destructive behaviours of having to have myself degraded and humilated were gone, I didnt think about it, I didn't feel it.
Then as time went on I did a career change, life got difficult, we had a baby, and the ex-wife started to push on my buttons again about things like child support, living arrangements, etc. I guess the combination of the stress of life, the job I always wanted I was not enjoying at all and felt I made the wrong life decision to pursue it, and her constant pushing and mean hurtful comments, started to bring me back there. I went online and spoke to an individual that I knew I shouldn't have and had inappropriate conversations with her including getting her to send pictures. I stupidly had sent her a selfie of myself and then when she attempted to extort me and I stopped talking to her she reported me to my employer and they terminated me. My wife found out about what I did, felt betrayed as you'd expect, that I cheated, and for a long while it looked like this relationship, the only good one I've ever had, was going to be over.
We stayed together, got therapy, worked through some very tough times. However I hid my coping mechanism of going onto those chat sites and being treated like a piece of shit to feel better. She didn't know however a few times almost caught me which escalated everything as she instantly thought I was cheating on her. Again I tried therapy, tried to cope tried to deal. Again months later I went on and this time I stupidly used a picture of my wife's ex husband as my profile picture (he has the same name as my assaulter and therapist would suggest it was a way of seemingly trying to get back at my assaulter). The person I spoke to knew the ex, told him, and he called my wife telling me what happened. Again my relationship was almost over.
At that point I told my wife everything, what happened, what I do. She amazingly stayed and has helped me through it but I know I'm on very thin ice and can't do those self destructive things again. I don't sleep, I have terrible nightmares including where my wife and her ex and doing the things to me instead of my ex and her boyfriend. I can't stop thinking about my wife cheating on me, having sex with guys and humiliating me, treating me like absolute garbage. From comments made to me I cant help but believe my wife wants a more endowed man, a better man, a real man. Some days all I want to do is go on those sites and have someone degrade and humiliate me and I for some reason will feel better but my therapist showed me how that is self destructive and will spiral out of control again until I do something that ends my marriage, my family, and I'll have nothing.
I'm sorry this is so long, I never posted or spoke in any detail of any of this. And there's so much more, so much more detail that I just cant make myself type.
How can a 20yo allow this to happen to himself? And to live that way for so many years? Still to this day one email from my ex gets me on edge and makes me feel those things. I struggle daily but I'm proud that for 6 months, since my last slip up, I havent went onto any of those sites or done that behaviour again. I have terrible days, hard to cope and manage, but I've been able to fight through them. I just don't know if I can keep it up and some days when those feelings and thoughts start, and I fight them, and they come back stronger, and I fight them, and they come back stronger...I have to fight so hard to not give in and say to myself "ok 10 minutes on one of those sites and I'll feel better and continue on in my day". I know I can't do that.
Thanks for reading and listening
DamagedButNotDestroyed